From Pigs to Pork:The Lifecycle of Seaboard Foods’ Pork Products

At Seaboard Foods, we take pride in feeding people. Our connectivity across every step of raising and caring for pigs for pork — from breeding to supermarkets to restaurants — ensures we raise healthy pigs and deliver high-quality, delicious pork.
Seaboard Foods Mission Statement

Breeding

It starts with superior genetics to raise healthy animals.

Meet Joe Popplewell, Operations Manager

Up next: Sow Barns Photo

Up next: Proper Handling Photo

Sow farms are biosecure buildings where pigs are bred and housed, and then give birth to piglets. Employees take several steps to ensure that pigs remain healthy, including showering in and out of sow farms and cleaning and sanitizing the inside and outside of the barn.

Up next: Breeding Photo

Employees use proper handling techniques, which assure the safety and comfort of pigs and people on the farm.

Up next: Heat Detection Photo

Two employees are breeding sows through artificial insemination. After checking to make sure the sow is in heat, a catheter is inserted, and a bag of semen is attached at the end. The semen is naturally pulled into the sow. Artificial insemination is a safer method for the sows and the people who work with them.

Up next: Quick Facts About Genetics

This employee is checking a sow for signs of heat. Heat detection is the most important art of the breeding program. If she stands in heat, she is ready to be bred.

Sows are moved to our gestation barns where they receive specialized veterinary care and nutrition.

Meet Dr. Rebecca Robbins, Production Veterinarian

The gestation barn is on the same farms as breeding and farrowing barns, which allows sows to be moved easily. Keeping the animals in one location also helps to keep them healthy by minimizing contact to anything that may potentially be carrying disease.

Up next: Monitoring Sow and Piglets Photo

This sow is lying down in its stall in the gestation barn. There, she can be fed a nutritious diet without competition from other sows and receives water 24/7 from a clean water nipple. When thirsty, the sow simply presses down on a button with her mouth to drink fresh water.

Up next: Feed Delivery Photo

Sows live in the gestation barn after being bred. As they are gestating, or pregnant, veterinarians and farm employees monitor the health of the sow and piglets. Ultrasound is one way of doing so, and also lets farm employees know for sure that the sow is pregnant.

Up next: Meet Our Team Video

Feed is delivered to a farm on a regular basis, providing sows with a fresh and nutritious source of food. Feed bins are located outside the barn, with lines that bring the feed in and deliver it to the pigs.

Farrowing

Sows typically give birth to 10-12 piglets and nurse their offspring for about 3 weeks.

Hungry piglets find food by nursing from their mother. The bars pictured keep the sow from accidentally laying or rolling on her piglets and gives the piglets space of their own on top of a heat pad.

Up next: Monitoring Piglets Photo

Farrowing barns are located on the same farm as gestation and breeding barns. Biosecurity protocols, such as showering in, are followed by all employees to keep barns clean and disease free.

Up next: Barn Temperature Photo

Employees monitor sows farrowing, or giving birth. If assistance is necessary, they are there ready to help. They also regularly check that piglets are nursing and overall in good health.

Up next: Temperature Monitor photo

Young piglets require a warmer temperature than the sows do. Barns are kept cool enough to keep sows comfortable and heat pads are added to stalls for piglets to sit or lay on.

Up next: Needleless Injections Photo

Temperature is very important to animal health. For each farrowing room, there is a monitor that controls the temperature. If the room gets cold, heat will turn on to reach the set temperature. Likewise, fans can quickly cool a room off when it gets too warm.

Up next: Iron Injection Photo

Seaboard Foods farms use needleless injection, which uses compressed air instead of a metal needle. This piglet is getting a shot of iron, as newborn piglets have low iron levels and tend to be anemic.

Up next: Piglets Nourishing Photo

When the piglet is just a few days old it will receive an injection of iron, have its tail docked and be castrated if it is a male. This is important to do at a young age, as the piglet will feel less pain and it allows the iron supplement to be absorbed sooner.

Up next: Meet our Team Video

Within minutes of being born, piglets will begin to look for their mother’s milk. Employees monitoring the farrowing room will make sure the piglets are able to find and drink milk from the mother’s teat. It is essential for piglets to get milk as soon as possible, as they receive all antibody protection from it within the first 24 hours of life.

Nursery

Later we move our male and female piglets to nursery barns where they receive daily care in open pens with other pigs from their sow barn.

Meet Jessica Ingo, Nursery Farm Manager

Nursery farms house pigs from the time they leave the sow farm until they are big enough to go to a finishing farm. They remain at the nursery for approximately one and a half months.

Up next: Pigs Nourishing Photo

Throughout the day, employees at the nursery walk through and check pigs. They look for things such as feeder levels, barn temperature and controls, fans and sick or injured pigs.

Up next: Water Nipples Photo

Pigs have constant access to water through these water nipples. Employees check every day to make sure the water lines are working properly, as water is the most essential nutrient to a growing pig.

Up next: Feed Bins Photo

This pig is drinking from a water nipple, which is adjusted to the size of pigs in the pen. The nipple should reach to the top of the shoulder of the smallest pig in the pen, so that all pigs are able to reach it comfortably.

Up next: Meet our Team Video

Each day, an employee checks the feed bins at the farm. They check how much is left, the color of it, and if any has gone bad. Medicated feed to control or prevent disease is a different color to track its use. If there are any issues with feed, they are able to fix it or have a maintenance specialist come out to make repairs.

Finishing

Living in open pens with peers from the nursery to ensure comfort and well-being, our pigs reach full weight in 20 weeks.

Meet Rafael Lozano, Finishing Farm Manager

Finishing farms keep pigs from the time they leave the nursery to the time they go to market. Here, the pigs grow to reach about 280 pounds.

Up next: Pig in Pen Photo

In finishing barns there are pens which have about 20 pigs in each. This allows farm workers to give individualized attention to each pig, even in large barns.

Up next: Water Nipples Photo

At the finishing farm, pigs are housed with others from the same nursery farm. They are regularly checked to make sure they are not sick or injured and are eating enough feed.

Up next: Misters Photo

Pigs have constant access to clean, fresh water. Farmers check these water nipples daily to make sure they are working properly. On a hot day, pigs like to find a spot near the water to cool down.

Up next: High-Quality Feed Photo

Here a farm employee is checking the spout of a mister. Pigs are unable to sweat, so on a hot day misters will be turned on to control the temperature. The water lands on the pigs and evaporates, which cools down their body temperature.

Up next: Employee Communication Photo

High quality feed is important to keep pigs healthy. These feed bins outside of the barn have a window at the bottom, so employees are able to see the feed that will be transported into the barn.

Up next: Finishing Farm Checklist

Farm employees communicate while checking pens and pig health. Good communication is an integral part of a successful farm.